Ganapathi Bhat
The Indian armed forces opened its doors to women as late as 1992. They were, however, inducted into the non-combatant posts in medical, engineering, architectural, educational and legal wings of army, navy and air force. The “combatant” roles for women had to wait till the early 2016 when three woman-officers were selected as fighter squadrons in the Indian Air Force. Now, one of them, Flying Officer Avani Chaturvedi has done India proud by becoming the country’s first woman female fighter pilot after her solo 30-minute flying of Mikoyan-Gurevich-21 (MiG-21) fighter aircraft from the Jamnagar IAF base on Monday last.
The remarkable Avani Chaturvedi has thus pitch forked India to a select league of countries like US, Australia, Israel, Pakistan and England which possess women as air fighters. Avani has also broken one of the most common stereotypes about women. Unbridled enthusiasm about flying, inspiration from brother serving the army, hard work and gruelling 3-year training has apparently paid rich dividends to Avani who hails from a small district in Madhya Pradesh.
After the final 1-year exercise at Bidar in air-to-air and air-to-ground skills, apart from manoeuvring skills and night flying, Avani could well be commanding Sukhoi and Tejas aircrafts. Obviously, there are many advantages in having women as fighters though there are roadblocks as well. The disadvantages are more physical than intellectual. The impression is that women’s less-than-average body size and their endurance capacity could be well below the mark for a combative task. Moreover, women’s innate empathetic nature and intelligence gathering abilities may help the army to extract information from women and children in combat areas.
Two more IAF officers Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh are waiting in the wings to emulate Avani to add more feathers in India’s Defence cap. The day is not too far away when the Indian army inducts women as soldiers. The “all police battalion” in Jammu & Kashmir, as promised by Army Chief General Bipin Rawat, will hopefully happen sooner than later.
